Spelljammer Fish out of water campaign - Spelljammer

[JWO]

OK...now Non-Stop is basically your campaign! You should also track down Metamorphosis Alpha stuff too if you can.

Cool! I'm sorry to say that I hadn't actually heard of him until your post. I haven't really read much sci-fi but I've recently been getting into it more and more (just reading Flowers for Algernon at the moment). Will have to look into these for inspiration!

 

[amerigoV]

Heh - you do not have to actually tell them, but you could have them be the Veggie Pygmies on the ship in Expedition to the Barrier Peaks (just tell them they are all the same race and use whatever they choose as the stats for the VPs). So then they get two big reveals:

The first is the players will figure out they are on a derelect space ship of some sort, although the PCs will just think it is part of their world.

The second is when they discover the outside world when all those pesky adventurers attack and then figure out they are the Veggie Pygmies.

Hmm, might have me the start of a nice little Convention Game - thanks for the seed!


Its interesting, I have never run EttBP, and I am not sure I would want to run it as it, but I have generated a number of fun, odd ideas off of that adventure (3rd one)

 

[MasterTrancer]

Actually you could make it a demiplane, as per Planescape; have it made by a wizard with a penchant for nature and maybe the want of nurture a budding civilization.

 

[JWO]

Yeah, I was thinking that it didn't necessarily have to be a spaceship, but I'd want to keep that sci-fi element to it so it's still a major headf**k for the characters!

I guess the tricky part is then the fact that there would then be significant differences in the technology levels in play.

 

[Zardnaar]

I've just been looking into Spelljammer stuff for the first time ever and I thought of what I think could be quite a cool idea for a campaign using the "fish out of water" trope. The key is that you'd start a Spelljammer campaign, but let the players believe they were just going to be playing a pretty generic fantasy game. Their characters would probably all be quite young, and would've grown up together in a village that's completely isolated for some reason (surrounded by the "dark woods from which no one returns" or something like that). Anyway some kind of event happens which means they have to leave the village and then they realise that they've actually been living on a spaceship the whole time in some kind of eco-pod. It'd kind of be like a cross between The Truman Show and another movie that I won't mention because of spoilers (you'll know which one I'm talking about if you've seen it).

It'd probably work best if they only gradually start realising their situation as the sessions go along.

You'd also have to have quite open minded players who wouldn't mind the fact that you'd completely screwed with their expectations!

Sounds like Phantasy Star III to some extent. You start of the game in ye olde village and find out you are on a giant space ship.

 

[SamVDW]

I've just been looking into Spelljammer stuff for the first time ever and I thought of what I think could be quite a cool idea for a campaign using the "fish out of water" trope. The key is that you'd start a Spelljammer campaign, but let the players believe they were just going to be playing a pretty generic fantasy game. Their characters would probably all be quite young, and would've grown up together in a village that's completely isolated for some reason (surrounded by the "dark woods from which no one returns" or something like that). Anyway some kind of event happens which means they have to leave the village and then they realise that they've actually been living on a spaceship the whole time in some kind of eco-pod. It'd kind of be like a cross between The Truman Show and another movie that I won't mention because of spoilers (you'll know which one I'm talking about if you've seen it).

It'd probably work best if they only gradually start realising their situation as the sessions go along.

You'd also have to have quite open minded players who wouldn't mind the fact that you'd completely screwed with their expectations!

Sounds like a really awesome idea, very creative. There is one thing that I would be concerned about. Our group chooses what game we are going to play next together, as a group. This would be one of those situations where you would agree on one thing, but then end up doing another. You'd have to know if your players are good with that before I would try it.

 

[JWO]

Yeah, I can see why that might be a problem. If I ever did put enough material together to actually run this, the people I would be playing it with are all pretty new to D&D so they wouldn't really have too many preconceived notions of how a "normal" game would play out.

But you're 100% right that your players would have to be open minded about having their expectations messed with!